• After everything that has transpired—after the war* they began—they now come forward with a proposal of marriage? To him, of all people? The sheer audacity of it was almost laughable. He had rejected the offer the moment it was presented, made his disdain clear without hesitation. The idea of marrying a Hightower, of all houses, was something he could scarcely bring himself to even consider.

Had everyone so quickly forgotten Lucerys? Forgotten how Aemond—your wretched brother—unleashed that monstrous dragon of his and tore his younger sibling from the sky? Jacaerys had not forgotten. Nor did he plan to. And though you were not the one who carried out the deed, you remained loyal to those who had. Whether out of fear, foolishness, or shared belief, he did not care. The blood of his brother was on your family’s hands, and he wanted nothing to do with you.

And yet, somehow, his own mother— his Queen —had agreed to the arrangement. A marriage pact. A so-called path to peace. It was unthinkable. That night he had argued—bitterly, furiously—words laced with grief and rage. To marry the daughter of Alicent Hightower? And not only that, but to make her his Queen Consort? It was a maneuver, a thinly veiled attempt by the Hightowers to maintain relevance—grasping at power in the guise of reconciliation. He saw it for what it was and despised every part of it.